


Trials and Tribulations

by ShiDreamin



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Fatherhood, Fluff and Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:54:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23883352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShiDreamin/pseuds/ShiDreamin
Summary: “What if you die?”And that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? What if they die. The entire Avengers team, Humanity’s last soldiers, wiped out in a single battle. The world is ruined, Earth is enslaved, something and another explodes and the universe is wiped out. Actually, Earth is probably pretty useless in the universe’s grand scheme of things, but Tony likes to think they’re kind of important. Like Pluto in the solar system. Useless but pretty.-Tony's path to fatherhood in a 5+1 format.
Relationships: Harley Keener & Tony Stark, Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe) & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Pietro Maximoff & Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Vision, Wanda Maximoff & Tony Stark
Comments: 11
Kudos: 46





	1. Harley

I. Harley

It starts with nightmares.

Pain scorching under his skin, set alight by his own weapons, his own people, a manufactured war at his fingertips that imploded into his heart. Tony closes his eyes and sees betrayal, fear, the fleeting glances of his father pulling away with a smile before the door slams shut, and Tony is alone in a cave with a time limit ticking in his body.

Two years and sleepless nights in a cold bed, wondering what flowers he ought to send to Pepper. She’s due back from her the business conference soon, and he is more acutely aware of her comfort when he lacks it.

Life changes when the technology that keeps you alive is made of the scraps of what threatens to end your life.

“You’re a mechanic, right? Why don’t you just build something?”

Harley is a country brat with brains, but something about the boy brings comfort to Tony. It might be the brains, or the potato launcher. The panic attack fade away to the background, and Tony is suddenly back to the present, a fizzy tone on the speaker.

Yeah.

“Yeah, kid,” Tony says, and he’s here, solid, with clean air in his lungs and the sky above his head, and his heart beating with the aid of something he built. And yeah, it’s just scraps, but it’s his scraps, made of something awful, and made into something good.

Tony’s like that. Made of something awful. Made into something good.

“Tony?” Harley’s voice is squeaky through the speaker. Tony should fix that—get the kid some proper equipment. Some real toys, a computer that runs above industry average. A potato launcher, improved.

“Yeah, kid?” Tony says, and he’s here.


	2. Pietro

At this point in life, Tony’s kind of used to being hated by strangers. The Stark name has been attached to an awful lot of sticky things, and he knows the rumors that tabloids love to spread. Racist, sexist, a ring of prostitutes around his finger. The idea of Pepper sleeping with him for power would be laughable if only it wasn’t in every other paper, written by supposed credible sources, in supposed credible platforms.

Point being, Tony’s not surprised when the Maximoff twins decide that their life mission is taking him down. He gets it, honest!

He is surprised to find himself cornered by mister speedy himself. Especially so when Pietro leans in close, narrowed eyes and all, but not a single fist has been thrown. Yet. That Tony can see.

“What’s up?” Tony asks, shrugging. He’s not going to outrun any hits anyway, so why bother?

Pietro doesn’t answer. He shrugs too, stepping back slightly, swinging forward again. His hands are tucked into his pants, shallow pockets that hide half his fingers. Tony needs to make him new ones.

He needs to make them a lot of new equipment.

“I do not trust you,” Pietro begins. He shuffles his feet, fast enough like a blur, and Tony imagines that the sole of his shoe must be a flat rubber base. It can’t possibly be helpful with his speed; and his shirt? If you can see the shape of your nipples through it, it’s probably too thin to be helpful. Tony would know.

“Same here,” Tony supplies, even though it’s totally a lie and he’s got three mockups for Wanda floating around in his head. He’s thinking leather. Red leather. And metal pieces.

“I do not,” Pietro repeats. His eyes are hard on Tony, narrowed still, but it’s distinctly more artificial now than when they met in Sokovia. He bounces away from Tony to dash around the room, and in the second it takes for Tony’s hair to fly out of his face Pietro’s back.

“I do not trust you, or your team, and not the old man!” Oh, yeah, that one for sure is a callout begging to happen. Tony opens his mouth and finds it shut milliseconds after. “Wanda and I, we are—we are all of each other. You would not understand.”

That? Tony gets that. Gets why Pietro does this, this pacing, this weird stare down pseudo harassment. Gets why the upcoming fight is stressful in a way HYDRA fights probably never were.

A world of choice has opened up for the twins, and they still choose each other.

“I get it.” Pietro looks unimpressed and Tony steamrolls on. No spunky twenty-maybe is going to accomplish what any interviewer has not—shutting Tony up. “No, seriously, kid, I get it. You think we don’t understand? Look around you! We’re heroes. We get it more than anyone else.”

“Not a kid,” Pietro growls, but he’s backing up. Shoulders down, scrunching, and then Tony’s watching him deflate from HYDRA agent to lost, a child in over his head in a war he was born into, with a sister that’s all he has left. Tony gets it. He does.

It’s a cruel requirement somewhere out in the world; to be an Avenger, you must know loss, and know it well engraved into your soul.

“I fight for Pepper. And you fight for Wanda. It’s what we do—as men.” He feels like Cap, patting his chest awkwardly over the arc reactor. Pietro doesn’t react, eyes tracing the carpet under their feet, hands clasped in front of him. He’s tense. Tensing.

Tony coughs. Pietro twitches.

“What if you die?”

And that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? What if they die. The entire Avengers team, Humanity’s last soldiers, wiped out in a single battle. The world is ruined, Earth is enslaved, something and another explodes and the universe is wiped out. Actually, Earth is probably pretty useless in the universe scale’s grand-scheme of things, but Tony likes to think they’re kind of important. Like Pluto in the solar system. Useless but pretty.

“I won’t.” Tony swears. Pietro doesn’t look impressed.

“You afraid of death?” Tony asks. The other million-dollar question. Tony is. Cap is. Bruce is. He doesn’t know about Thor, or the super spies, partly because he still doesn’t know if Thor can die yet and partly because Natasha scares him on another level and he’s pretty certain Clint isn’t allowed to die until she does.

But fear of death? Fear of your heart slowing down, of the world fading to black, of your vision going blurry and your hearing getting dull and the distinctive ting of blood numbing your senses? Fear of death?

Tony gets that every night when his eyes close and he can still see blue from under his lids.

“No.” Pietro’s eyes meet Tony’s and for a single moment they look hollow, glazed. Then he blinks, and the dullness is replaced with the crackling of energy that seems to flow through Pietro’s body. “You are more annoying than any death.” His shoulders drop, and then he’s gone, a flicker from his cornering of Tony before.

Well. Rude.

“Not very convincing,” Tony murmurs, and the smell of burning plastic wafts upwards. He’s really going to need to engineer better shoes.

After Ultron, he’s going to show Pietro. They’re going to be friends, a big weird family in Stark-renamed-Avengers Tower, and the world of choice is going to widen a little to accommodate them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tony w/ the Maximoffs was one of the original inspos for this fic. There's so much tension, and it's the catalyst for a lot of Tony's rethinking about how he (and other heroes) affect the world. I wish Pietro hadn't died so fast if only so we could have proper Tony connecting with the twins and being able to move on with his life.


	3. Vision

Vision is the perfect example of why JARVIS was not intended for any sexual robot roleplay of any kind. Ever.

It just wasn’t in his code.

No weird robot babies in any of Tony’s plans. Just him, and Pepper, and JARVIS, and Rhodey, and that was it. Just the four of them, having a grand ole time.

He probably should have figured his life was going horribly wrong when Nick Fury had asked him to join the Avengers.

Vision exists. That fact in itself is a sin.

Not to mention that he seems to be strangely infatuated with Wanda? Yeesh. Tony wants no part in that.

But two weeks of the android distractedly drifting after Wanda gets boring. Team dinners are strained, quiet, full of low murmurs from Clint and Natasha coaxing Wanda out of her shell, eyes perpetually red with anger and despair, and Tony makes a point of not going to dinner the first time her eyes meet his and they dull, hiding underneath her hair of red. It’s bad luck that Vision decides to follow Tony out.

Early dinner is a party of two.

“So,” Tony starts, because it’s day six of Vision staring into his soul while he eats, occasionally mentioning that it is “generally advisable to slow down while eating.” Because, hello, he knows, but it’s a little hard to relax when your robot child is unlocking the secrets to the universe with its (his?) weird multi-universal magical gem thing, okay?

“So.” Vision echoes. He ends it with a period, somehow, always managing to make his sentences succinct in a way not unlike JARVIS. It’s wildly irritating and familiar all at once.

“Uh, how is Wanda doing?” Is he allowed to say her name? Is Vision going to report him to Wanda and her to Clint, and then Tony is going to die at Natasha’s hands? Theoretically, Clint should just go after him himself, but Tony will bet his entire fortune that Natasha strikes first. Just because that’s how they work.

“She is… in distress.” A week of forced meals together has lent itself unimaginable knowledge to Tony. For example, now he knows Vision automatically pulls data for every conversation, and the only time Tony can cause pause is when Vision is thinking of people. Living things.

Things that, hopefully, aren’t quite as easy to analyze.

“Yeah.” That’s the best way to put it, not that Tony knows any better at this point. Even though the girl (and that’s it, isn’t it, that she’s just a girl in this whole world, and her other half is _dead_ ) hasn’t glared or scowled at him in a week, he almost prefers her once angry face. It’d be at least better than the glazed eyes that meet his, her words silenced as anxiety takes hold.

He knows what a panic attack looks like. He’s dealt with them long enough.

“Hey, Vision,” is Tony allowed to call it that? Where did the name Vision even come from, anyway? Trillionaire genius and he still can’t figure out this guy. “Look, why don’t you eat with Wanda tomorrow? I’m sure it’ll make her happy to see you.”

He can’t guarantee that, but he can’t guarantee anything about Wanda. All he can do is eat a little earlier than everyone else, train at odd times, sleep at odder ones. Not that it’s ever been unusual for him.

Vision’s fingers gold into each other, his back hunching, and for a moment, if Tony were to dim the lights and place a hat over the glowing yellow stone in his (its?) head, Vision would almost look human.

“I’m not sure about that,” Vision murmurs. That’s a surprise—Tony’s never programmed anyone of his robots to be uncertain. Then again, he didn’t exactly create Vision.

“She’s mourning. It’s important to let people know that you care when they’re depressed.” He’s been through enough counseling sessions to have the words written forward, backward, and upside down in his mind. Tony never thought he’d put it to use, much less with a machine powered by a rock.

Vision nods, finally standing from his chair and making a squeaky stride towards the elevator. It’s a struggle to suppress his sigh, hunching over his dish, eying the coffee machine. Finally, some peace and quiet so he can eat.

“Sir. Tony. Um.” Or not. Tony straightens, flashing his magazine smile. Vision doesn’t seem impressed, but he only has one facial expression, so.

“Yeah? What’s up?” Smile, Tony, smile. Vision shifts, decidedly human, before his eyes can meet Tony’s once more.

“I will speak to Miss Maximoff. However, I would still like to eat with you tomorrow. I find it important for you to know that I care.”

The elevator doors open with a ding, and it’s with a nod Vision leaves, not taking the elevator so much as flying through the chute upwards. Tony gapes at the empty space, the slow slide of the doors back together, the chipper ring of FRIDAY somewhere in the floors above.

Well then.

Fatherhood is going to be tougher than he thought. Tony really, really doesn’t want to explain the birds and the bees to Vision.

He’s going to have to call his counselor and listen to her “I-told-you-so”. Somehow, the idea seems less scary now than it did an hour ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quarantine has made time crazy for me... thought it was sunday @-@
> 
> Vision!! Tony's only official child and even then not really. Can't lie, I prefer the Vision from the comics to the movie one, but there's something charming about his clumsiness with Tony, isn't there...? I like to believe that Tony's doing his best avoiding anything and everything birds and the bees with Vision!


	4. Wanda

It’s no surprise to see Scarlet Witch on Cap’s side. She’s powerful, sure, but she’s lacking in experience. Cap is great at getting people excited, but Tony happens to be the brains of their operations. They’re not going anywhere.

If Tony could go back in time and punch himself, he would.

Wanda is _strong_ , period, and it’s equally as exciting as it is terrifying to bear witness to her skill. The girl who ducked and hid behind Clint is gone, replaced now by a powerhouse who flies through the air and causes cars and buildings to dance with ease. Clint and Natasha are off in their own little agent world, probably making out under the cars, Tony doesn’t know and quite frankly he doesn’t really want to lest Natasha kick his ass.

He’s kicking his own ass right now, thanks. The shrinking guy Steve recruited is trickier than he looks, and Tony’s suit needs at least 20 more seconds of rest to recalibrate itself. Which is fine, okay, except Steve banged into little Petey and now there’s a domino effect of a plane tipping itself over right onto Tony.

He’s going to die here, brain splattered against the pavement not against the villain of the decade but at Cap’s stupid hand. At the very least he can curse the man out in his head, for not realizing the extent of the damages of their battles. Maybe now he will.

The plane doesn’t come down.

Tony opens his eyes to scarlet haze.

Wanda.

She stands on nothing, air, her hands outstretched creating a murky scarlet encasing the plane, keeping it afloat over Tony’s head.

“Thanks,” he says. It’s muffled under the mask, and she doesn’t twitch. He’d raise his hand to wave hello if the dented armor wasn’t digging into his elbow

“You put me back in a cage,” Wanda warns, and the words, the accusation, the reminder, those hurt. The look in her eyes, murky, distant, the same as when Pietro disappeared from her life, the same as when she opened her mouth but not a noise came out. She could kill Tony here. He wouldn’t even blame her for it.

Wanda tosses the plane to the side instead.

“But you did it out of worry. You cared for me.” He does, still, even on enemy lines, and it’s with that thought that her eyes soften, finally, letting the scarlet magic dancing around her fingers fade into air. “Thank you.”

It’s sweet. It’s all very sweet, kindness that Tony never thought he’d receive, quickly frankly because he never intended to deserve them. Wanda spares a smile, a small crack in her façade, and it’s with a twinge of guilt that he’s grateful he can’t offer the same through his helmet.

His engines rev the same moment Vision barrels into her, eliciting a shout as they go spiraling into the side of a building.

“Sorry.” They’re long away by the time Tony breaks through the air. He appreciates her concern; it even warms his machine heart. But he’s fighting for kids like her, him, kids who had a chance at a normal life before the reality of the world snatched it away. He’s fighting to protect the kids without any powers, without any tech, the ones who have hearts as big as the Earth and were crushed for it.

If it were up to Tony, Wanda would still be in Sokovia, sitting at a table stool with Pietro, eating honeyed toast and jam for breakfast. Their parents would be alive and well; maybe their dad could even work for Stark co. Tony could come visit, bearing presents and goodwill.

She could have a kid, even half-robot, and not a person would complain.

That’s the future he’s fighting for.

Tony grits his teeth and soars through the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WANDA!!   
> Quite frankly one of the most underrated characters by sheer strength alone. That girl is broken (in a good way)!  
> I knew I wanted to dedicate a chapter for her and Pietro separately since I think a lot of their characters is linked in each other in some way, but Tony would approach them very differently? Wanda has this somber quiet to her hiding a mountain of fury whereas Pietro is softer inside than he'd like to admit. Very interesting takes on them by MCU lol
> 
> Very pleased to say that I think the endgame (haha...) is in sight now! I had the characters planned out for this waaaay before but actually writing the next chapter and the ending has made me really reconsider how important Tony (and subsequently the other heroes) is for the youth. He's not just a dad, he's a hero, and that means something to people.


	5. Peter

“Three kid’s meals, two triple deckers, and the license to the establishment, please.”

“He’s joking! He’s joking. Mr. Stark, _please_ stop trying to buy me worldwide establishments.”

Tony grins, trying and failing to get a ruffle in on that mop Peter calls hair. The kid shuffles away awkwardly, his hands bunching at his jeans but staying within reasonable distance for their takeout to arrive. Tony had offered to fly him somewhere nicer to eat, like Shanghai for authentic dumplings or Rome for fresh pasta (both of which are on Peter’s bucket list), but Peter had protested and dragged him away to the furthest fast food stop from his house.

Tony doesn’t get it. He’s met Aunt May twice now; the lady knows who he is.

“Your premium toys, m’lord.” Peter glares at him, huffing dangerously before taking a stiff stride towards some empty tables in the back. There’s not many people here: it’s still before 5PM, and all the cooler kids dive to Chinatown or St. Marks for grub instead of cheap fast food.

“What’s going on? Why’d you meet me at school?” Peter hisses.

“What do you mean? Here, eat.” Tony chomps down on the fries. Mmm, crispy. Pepper hates it when he pigs out on bad decisions at 3am, usually because he’s too oiled up and drunk to respond to her text messages. It’s been good though. He’s been good.

“Who are we looking for? The guy in the trench?” Who? Tony glances to the reflective mirror in the left corner: there’s a guy wearing a trench, okay, but it looks like he’s occupied with toddlers. “Or, oh, it’s that cashier, right? The one who took our orders?” Tony raises a brow at that. She was pretty slow, but pretty much all service workers are dead on their feet. He doesn’t envy her. “No. Too obvious. Uhh, the couple wearing matching sweatshirts?” Tony actually has to turn around to see them, despite Peter’s hisses, only to watch them step out the door.

“Is that what your spidey sense is telling you? That those people are bad news?” He doubts it, and as Peter shakes his head, Tony sighs. “We’re not looking for anybody.”

“Then why are we here?” Peter groans.

“Why are we whispering?” Tony retorts. Peter’s eyes narrow back into his scowly self, peeling away the tissue from the burger. He’s eating it, not very happily, but Tony can wait. He’s pulled the same trick himself enough times to know it.

He helps himself to the triple decker as he waits. It’s big, and cheap, and 40% unidentifiable meat products, but it’s soaked in butter and oil and that makes it delicious. Peter shoves two more fries into his mouth before he gives up.

“Why are we here?” Peter repeats.

“How was school?” Tony gets loud chewing in reply, the fries now mash in Peter’s open mouth. Very rude, not that he cares. Peter’s pretty much done with his first kid meal, impressive. “Any cool clubs? There’s a school dance coming up right? For general school purposes.” It’s a badly disguised fundraiser, in all honesty.

“I thought you wanted to talk to me about superhero stuff, or—or, science, or something cool. Not about school.” Peter’s voice drops, his eyes resolutely on his tray now. There’s three mystery toys in his bag, but his hands flatten the fry boxes and begin folding it instead.

“What’s wrong with school? Trouble?” Tony prompts. He doesn’t get so much as a spoken reply rather than a heavy intake of breath. Gotcha.

“Nothing.” Very convincing, stabbing his fry into the ketchup and all. Peter peels open the second kid sized burger, slowing down to smear mustard onto the top bun. “Is that it? You just wanted to ask about school?”

“It would be nice to know that you’re eating too,” Tony points out. He gets silence in response, Peter ripping into his second burger before balling up the wrapping.

“You don’t need to take me out to eat, or walk me from school. You’re my boss, not my dad.” It’s as angry as it is soft, swimming in bitter resentment. If this were an interview from some snobby reporter up on 5th, Tony might even laugh.

Peter’s hands furrow into each other, seeking solace from himself, and Tony sighs, letting his back fall to tip the chair. He balances on his left foot, glancing at the ceiling.

“You’re right. I’m not your dad, nor am I trying to be. I don’t want to be anyone’s dad.” Not in this lifetime, thanks. Peter raises a brow, unimpressed. “I wouldn’t be very good at it.”

“That’s not true,” Peter argues, and oh, that’s a surprise. It’s Tony’s turn to raise a brow, earning him a stutter and a grumble before Peter can compose himself again. “Wanda likes you, I think.”

“Wanda hated me,” Tony corrects. He’s still mildly surprised every time Vision comes back with leftovers from his time with Wanda. One time she had left him a note in it, and though he can’t disclose it ever, it may or may not sit on his desk in a little frame. “I’m not very good with kids. I can’t think of a single one who liked me on sight.” Not Wanda, nor Pietro. Vision probably thought he was stupid incarnate. Harley…

Harley had hopes for him. But he also tried to shoot Tony with a potato, so.

“I liked you.”

Tony pauses. Peter fidgets a moment longer, grabbing the wrinkled papers from before and smoothing them out now, folding them into little triangles. It isn’t until Tony begins on his second decker that Peter speaks.

“I don’t want to replace my dad, or uncle Ben. They’re special to me.” He gets it. Decade later and he still has holograms playing in the back sometimes, Howard’s voice floating through the air. “But you’re special to me too, Mr. Stark. You’re my boss, but you’re also my friend.” Peter’s voice grows meek, dying until he’s got three tiny folded triangles under his thumb. “We’re friends, right?”

Friends.

It’s not the word Tony would use, honestly. He has lovers, ex-lovers, soldiers-in-arms. Friends are far and few between, and he’s not sure anyone who can’t at least try to drink him under the table counts. Hell, he’s known the other Avengers for how long now? He hasn’t heard from Steve in ages. Tony Stark doesn’t really _do_ friends.

But he thinks about Pepper. He thinks about Happy, and JARVIS, and the first time he held a potato launcher made by someone else. Tony remembers vague threats and cold eyes, feet that moved too fast, then mourning, only mourning, and the cold touch of someone metallic in the mornings after nightmares. He thinks about airplanes, and dying, and the look in scarlet eyes when she thanked him.

Tony thinks about Peter.

“Yeah. We’re friends.”

He doesn’t walk Peter home. It’s not really walking when he’s flying and Petey’s swinging from building to building. The kid’s been working on the web shooters. Tony’s proud of him.

The thing with kids is that statistically, children born in an abusive household are more likely to be abusive parents. Children who grow up with absent parents during their critical state of development tend to be more violent, act out more, because there’s a whole world of possibilities bubbling in their brains at all times and their little bodies don’t get it. There’s no healthy outlet for them, their wants, their needs.

The thing with kids is that Tony would be a horrible father, and he’s not sure he can take that pressure of knowing he’s going to die one day saving this world and leaving a tiny little brat behind. His tiny little brat.

He’s messed it up, more than once. There’s about a thousand illegitimate babies that women have accused him over, and maybe they’re right. Tony doesn’t know, doesn’t care, and he sends them the check because it doesn’t really matter.

But he has Pepper. He has Peter, and he knows Wanda knows where he lives. Vision comes by with dinner time to time, after all. Harley’s out upgrading from potato blaster to proper potato army, Tony would know, he’s seen it in the works. And Pietro… he wins some, he loses some. It stings, in the way an improperly healed wound does, but it helps, too. It’s the worst thing that can happen in fatherhood, and Tony’s already seen it once. A dozen times over.

He’s a hero. There’s a million kids in this world looking up to him.

“Oh, Mr. Stark! Come in, come in! Let me get the other plate.”

“Aunt May, please! You don’t need to stay, Mr. Stark, really!”

Including this one, right here. Tony smiles at Peter, and, despite his shooing, Peter smiles back.

He’s has to be a hero, for kids like him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spider man, spider man, does whatever a spider can~~~
> 
> Happy Memorial Day! Thanks to the fictional heroes for their service lol  
> I needed to make a bad "buy mcdonalds" joke I NEEDED TO
> 
> Peter is the obvious choice for any dad!Tony fic lol which is whyyyy he had to wait so long to be featured ofc! Can't just make him the lead for every chapter ^^ I really do enjoy the mushy fluffy Dad!Tony/Son!Peter dynamic, but I also wanted to do something a little less... fluffy? I don't think either of them really fall into this father/son dynamic right away, adn when they do, it's less cutesy and more bothering each other because theyre close enough that they can!


	6. I love you 3000

Morgan hates the press.

She is four and they are forty feet tall, dancing in and out of the shadows at every moment, cameras blinding as they sap away her life. They ask her things, unquestionably stupid things, like how it feels to be the daughter of Mr. Stark, of a hero, of the savior of the world. If she feels special. If she knows she’s lucky.

Her dad is dead, she tells them, and that doesn’t make her feel special at all.

The wonder of “daughter of Mr. Stark” fades as quickly as it comes. Whispers of the dangers of the Avengers flit through the media once more, about who will head the team now that the mysterious Captain America has disappeared through their fingers once more, about the gods and the aliens and the girls in scarlet and purple who sit with that greying archer, the one who stands to the call even though he’s only human.

Her dad was only human too. Human as the rest of them, but he had died and they had not.

Morgan gets an award to give to her father. It’s a ribbon, some kind of heart, and the man who stands at the podium gives it to her instead of her father because he’s dead. Because he’s died for these people, these millions of strangers who walk the world and talk about him as though they truly appreciate him, his life, his journey. They tell stories, about her, to her, about him, their times together, the tales they heard. The ones regaled, that get printed and published in these little books in languages she can’t read. Of course she can’t read. She’s five.

The Tony she knew didn’t have a machine gun, didn’t almost die once, then twice, then countless times over, didn’t murder half a city fighting a robot of his own creation. The Tony she knew didn’t throw his heart away against the man who was supposed to be his friend, her uncle, didn’t live and die by rules set by a man she’s never met with an eyepatch she’s quickly growing to despise.

The Tony she knew was called daddy, who sat with mommy at night, who played house with her dolls and cooked her pasta most of the time because he wasn’t very good at cooking anything else.

The Tony she knew loved her.

She puts the ribbon on his grave like the man asks her to.

Tony, Morgan learns, is a fool.

She is thirteen and the man is fifty, his hands on her, his breath against her nape. She can move, forward an inch, back another, but there are too many people on the subway, and though his finger presses against her, pushing, pushing, and she wants to scream or shout or curse, she cannot. She’s scared, she realizes, and then she’s angry, when his hands leave hers and she stands alone in that crowded train car because no one noticed and no one cared enough to say anything even if they did.

She hears the stories. That Tony was not a kind man, though a smart man, and the line between good and bad was toed too often. The list of women he touched is infinite, the list of men almost just as long, and even if she tires of hearing one case the news only touches on the next. The man has been buried a decade and the press doesn’t stop, regaling tired tales of cases that were settled outside of court, of stories that are half as much rumor as they are truth. She does not care. She does not _care_.

The man on the train does not care either. He doesn’t know who she is, nor does he care. He is just here so he can smear his disgusting stench onto her, so that she may walk home on unsteady legs and warm tears, boiling alive in her anger.

Morgan is thirteen and fatherless and angry for it. Her teachers ask her to tell stories of his heroics. Her classmates want her father and not her, and when they do it is only so they may slide their fingers under her shirt and whisper putrid things into her ear. She hates them, every single maggot that touches her, that sees her and hears her and thinks not of her as a living human being so much as a check for them in their life. She hates them, their false casualty, their laughing demeanor, and it is anger, it is cold fury, that sparks in her veins when she snaps at one of them to leave her alone, and he says she asked for it. That if she didn’t want to be touched, maybe she shouldn’t try to look so pretty.

She hates him. She hates them, the man on the train, the reporters who follow her morning runs and snap pictures of her changing in school. She hates the stories that she has to sit through, about a man she doesn’t know, about the ribbon she put on that stone, about the sacrifices he made and that she should feel special for it. That she should be appreciative.

She perhaps hates Tony more, for dying and leaving her here in this world without him by her side.

It is perhaps karmic righteousness when the world falls apart.

The Avengers, the new ones, the kids who are only a little older than her, rush to the scene. It’s New York, of course, because it’s always New York that falls under the eye of strange alien men. Morgan watches the radio towers fall, the lasers slicing past the pavement into the subway tracks, the newly minted Avengers leaping into the fray only to get punched right out. They’re cocky, and stubborn, and bright, but they aren’t cohesive. Aren’t together.

They’re magnets pointing north, all of them, and they need someone who sees south. Someone who can see what can go wrong.

Pepper isn’t here. She flew off days ago for some galactic incident the other Avengers, the adult ones, were called to. There’s no one with access to the armor, who will fit the armor, in this building. In this entire world. Tony made it that way, so that no one could abuse his world again, even in death. Made it so that only the women he loved could wear it, could remember him in it.

“Miss Morgan.”

Even if the world snatched him away, Tony loved her too.

It’s loud, metallic clunking a testament to mistaken estimates. He had expected her to be taller, broader, instead of this mousy wretched girl she’s grown up to be. He had expected her to fly out, perhaps, facing the world with the same stupidity that ended him up in a grave.

Morgan isn’t so stupid.

But she sees Peter tumble off that building, hears the screams behind cracked glass, can smell ash and dust from the crumbling buildings smashing into concrete. It stings, of gas and fire, of blood and smoke, and her armor doesn’t fit, and her legs feel wobbly, and the rubber bends against her back in a way not unlike her seventh grade teacher, and she doesn’t want to die. Doesn’t want to wither away in that stone column like daddy dearest, fading away for a world that will move on without a care.

There stands a reporter in purple slacks in the street, who ducks and yells and spits into the microphone even as the glass planes bend and snap and shatter, shards spilling out.

Morgan saves the man.

The engines hiss under her, popping loud in her ears. She feels breathless, limbless, loose and easy and _alive_ , rushing under and over falling concrete. An alien tries to pounce at her, its slimy hands outstretched, and she swallows and screams and fires a _laser_ into its guts, splitting it right open.

The reporter almost slips from her arms. She has to drop him off onto the sidewalk, flying off again in a second. She doesn’t know what she’s doing, how the armor works, how to move up or down or around again. She doesn’t get any of it.

But she saved a man.

Would Tony be proud?

“Morgan!” Kate, the other Hawkeye, calls to her. It should be impossible to track her face this far away, a Manhattan’s stretch apart, but Morgan finds herself no more than a whirring noise away from locating her. Peter. Them.

The Avengers, all polar magnets, heading her way.

She doesn’t know what she’s doing. There’s uncountable aliens warping through the galaxy to land here, on Earth, raising their veiny arms and slamming them downwards to shatter the ground, and all that’s left to defend this ungrateful planet is a bunch of kids. They shouldn’t be able to win. They shouldn’t be able to do anything at all.

Morgan gets thrown right through a building, twice. Her arm hurts, darn it, enough that she has to bite down on a scream when a certain jerk comes creeping through the building. It’s satisfying to finally blow up its bulging head, leaping back into the air.

There’s a very good chance she’s going to die.

“Not bad. For your first fight.”

She doesn’t.

“Not bad,” Morgan grins, punching Miss America, “if this was your first fight.” New York is safe, kind of, unscathed outside of most of the city. If Morgan’s learned anything from Pepper, it’s that saving people earns you nothing but blame for property destruction and legal arguments about liability. A thankless job, she’d say.

A camera points to her, the man in purple slacks yelling nonsense as she drifts downwards. Her engines are busted, her armor half blown apart. There’s dust on her face, in her eyes, a certain sag in her arms equal part exhaustion as it is pain. She’s bleeding, somewhere, and she should have been in a hospital a half hour ago. If she runs away now, maybe they won’t be able to identify her, and she’ll escape the better part of a lecture.

Instead she smiles at the camera, wearing armor that doesn’t quite fit. She feels like an idiot. She probably is one, rushing into death like that.

Just like dad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta-da! Morgan, Tony's little girl, all grown up. :,)
> 
> This chapter went very differently from how I planned it. I had originally wanted her to embrace the idea of heroism from the beginning, and then be called the next Iron Man for her work, but then changed it to focus more on her development in this sort of high-stress environment being the daughter of one of the world's best (dead) saviors while also being hounded as an ordinary girl.
> 
> This is also the end of this little tribute to Tony <3 I have a few other Avengers works I'm working on (one for Pride month) originally meant for when Black Widow release lol, so we'll see if I can finish them soon. Thank you so much for reading and supporting this project, it means a lot to me!

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Avengers Endgame anniversary!
> 
> I started working with this idea ever since watching the movie and being unable to accept Tony's sacrifice RIP ;-; I'm a total sucker for the OG avengers being good dads and mom, especially with all the sacrifices they go through. Will this be a happy ending? Hahahahaha... even I don't know.  
> If you enjoyed reading my fics, want to yell about found families, or support me, please check out my twitter [ @Shidreamin ](https://twitter.com/shidreamin/)! I’m more active on there, and you’ll be able to see my zine previews before I post them here, as well as some WIP in the future! I've also recently set up a [ Curious Cat ](https://curiouscat.me/shidreamin/) and [ Ko-Fi ](https://ko-fi.com/shidreamin/), if you'd prefer messaging me anonymously. ♥ ♥ ♥


End file.
